Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is taking the stage at Business Insider’s Ignition conference in New York today to talk about his company — and possibly whether he’ll still be in charge next year.

This comes right on the heels of reports from AllThingsD and The Wall Street Journal that Groupon is discussing on Thursday the future of the CEO at the daily deals company.

Henry Blodget, editor in chief of Business Insider, will be interviewing him onstage — and is sure to ask about those reports. Groupon whiffed its 3Q earnings, with international revenue growth basically halting,

“The article said members of the board are considering discussing it at our normal board meeting tomorrow whether I’m the right guy to lead Groupon. Here’s a news flash: our stock is down about 80%, it would be weird if the board wasn’t discussing whether I’m the right guy to do the job, it’s their chief responsibility to ask that question.”

“There’s no question we’ve had bumps in the road, but Groupon has created a brand new category, we’re categorizing the move from commerce from offline to online… We’ve fended off thousands of competitors in the 48 countries we operate in.”

“Groupon’s a special kind of company,” Mason says. “We’re experiencing that volatility now as we predicted when we did the IPO a year ago. If I ever thought I wasn’t the right guy for the job, I’d be the first person to fire myself.”

“The question is what is the right skillset, and we’ve seen the speed and at times chaos of Groupon crush the most seasoned professionals,” Mason says. “What Groupon needs from the CEO role is consistent leadership, stability, the ability to attract a strong team and a winning strategy. I’m flattered that people would think that perhaps replacing me would eliminate some of these bumps.”

“My belief since we went public… is that candor and straightforwardness with the public and transparency was always going to be the best policy, and our stock is going to reflect our long-term performance. I don’t think you can talk the stock back up to $20, it’s gonna come down to our ability to deliver, and that’s what we’re doing. We have a North American business that’s growing… that’s really the model for what Groupon can be,” Mason says.

“Because of our strategy to grow quickly (in Europe) and capture market share, we didn’t invest in technology like we did in North America… we’re paying for that now. We now have the playbook, it’s the playbook for North America,” Mason says.

“You learn a lot, the hardest time was during the quiet period when we filed our S-1 — it was a sudden shift and came off as a shock. You personally and the company builds up a resiliency into their culture. They build the mechanisms to look inward for signs of progress. I can imagine as the press are writing articles about Groupon, they’re like, ‘he’s gotta be crying,’ but that’s not what it’s like. There’s so much exciting stuff happening in the company and that tends to be what we’re focusing on. We’ve built up a resiliency to external noise. We know what’s in the best interest of our shareholders is not optimizing for three months from now, it’s optimizing for three years from now.”

“The people who are on Groupon to be part of the latest bandwagon don’t survive. What you’re left with are the true believers, you’re left with people who are willing to suffer the questions of their family and friends because they see this beautiful business model being applied to local commerce. They realize that the pain they’re going to undertake for the next few months, it’s part of the journey and we’ll look back at these war stories and be proud we went through that and be proud we had the opportunity to prove the world wrong. There’s something romantic about that.”

“You don’t need to read the way it’s sensationalized in the press every day. There were people writing stories about us going bankrupt. The business would just have to go into severe negative growth, the scenario is so absurd there’s no evidence for it. There’s a period of time that you have to become comfortable with the fact that it’s not gonna stop people writing those stories. Employees don’t often have that perspective, they see enough examples of stuff being written that proves to be untrue that they build the resiliency regardless of what we’re saying.”

On the general vibe of Groupon watchers on the Web: “The feeling is that, ‘I don’t know how the company goes down, but it’s going down.’”

“There have been a few things that surprised us. The first is the international business, were it not for the decline over the last two quarters, we’d have had another $130 million or so in gross billings if you kept it flat. It’s an obfuscator in the story of Groupon. You have to look at the North American and International segment to see the tale of two businesses.”

“The other surprise is the popularity of Goods, we hadn’t in North America built the infrastructure to procure deals and ship them in a reliable fashion. The same value propostion that we have for local deals, the discovery of curated offers, goods fits squarely into that. There’s no better evidence of that that they are just gobbling up these deals. We’ll run a deal for a Garmin GPS device and sell 30,000 in 8 hours. So, Goods has taken us by surprise and in order to serve customer demand, we give more of our Daily Deal real estate to Goods deals and not just local deals. Goods deals are today lower margin, still healthy margins, but it has a short-term impact on the profitability of the business. We’re a growth company, we’re focused on doing the right thing for customers, margins are something we can optimize over the long term.”

“When we started Groupon, the idea, the way I was thinking about it, was, I’m a recluse, I don’t do anything. I need something to push me out the door. Send me one thing a day and offer it at a price that makes it stupid to say no. It was about discovery, it was for explorers and making it really easy and accessible for people to do that. We were the first company that built the relationships for the two sides of the marketplace coin to take local commerce and move it from offline to online. Through brute force, we’ve gone door-to-door to build relationships with merchants. That puts us in a position where not only can we send people things on our terms, and allow them to come to Groupon to fill demand. We think there’s an opportunity to plug local commerce into the web.”

“We have this core daily deal business that is about shocking people into buying something they didn’t intend to buy when they woke up in the morning. That value proposition, in order to make it as strong as possible, you do two things: reallly high-quality deals and not being boring. A big part of that is not being boring in some ways I wish we were more boring.”

“Absolutely we can sell more. In the U.S., we have 40 million customers overall and about half our business is in North America. There’s absolutely an opportunity to grow that business.”

“We’ve never thought the only way to tap into the three-trillion local commerce market is by sending people emails. That’s why we’ve just launched a browsable, searchable marketplace product. You can type it in, we’ll return an inventory from thousands of deals that are persistent.”

“It’s like I said, if I thought I wasn’t the guy… I, as the founder and creator of Groupon, as a large shareholder, as a customer that loves the product, I care far more about the success of the business than my role as CEO.”

“If I thought I wasn’t the guy, I’d be the first person to stand up and take myself out of the job. I think we have the strategy, I think we have the team, I think the board sees that and believes in the path that we’re on.”

“I wanna do what’s best for Groupon. I’ll say yes, but let’s be clear, the stock is down 80%, what is happening is only noteworthy in the sense that it’s being written about in the press. When the stock is down 80%, people are going to ask if you’re doing the right things.”

Comments (5 of 8)

Mark Dennett, small business marketing coach: "The traffic you develop with discounts are not customers, they are shoppers. As I point out in my book, "Powershift Marketing", they usually won't return."

1:55 pm November 28, 2012

Groupon PLANT? LMAO wrote:

"not buying it" I don't know where you would get an idea like that, I'm a small business owner and have been in sales and marketing all my life. I just appreciiate a creative approach to marketing other than conventional media. If I'm a hotel owner with 200 units and typically have 30 unsold rooms on most nights, what exactly is it going to cost me to promote with a Groupon. Let's say the room normally rents for $70 a night, and Groupon advertises my hotel online for FREE, and offers a customer the opportunity to rent a room for $35 instead of $70. I get a new customer to at least TRY my hotel and even though I split the $35 with Groupon, I still make money on the deal and the maids may make a little extra tip money. It's a "win win" proposition for both the merchant and the customer because I am paying for that room in a mortgage payment, utilites, etc. whether or not it is occupied. It wouldn't cost me more than $5.00 to put a customer in that unsold room. Groupons are great for restaurants also, and with their partnership with Expedia they are now all over the world. The merchandise was an obvious good move for them also. I'm about to buy some Egyptian cotton sheets from them that would sell for about $200 in a store, for $59 for king size. I've bought these before and have been very pleased. I just don't see the downside. They had to spend a heck of a lot of money to hire 7,000 salespeople and build their infrastructure, but now they are making a little money. In a year or two, they are going to be making a LOT of money. Mason is a smart guy. I hope he stays.

1:24 pm November 28, 2012

mac gardner wrote:

Hugo, your comment "unhappy merchant are only more than 60%" is the exact opposite of the merchants I know who have run Groupon promotions. I've talked to about a dozen of them, and ALL of them are very happy. The only thing I've seen negative was about some guy who owned a bagel shop / antique store which was about to go under when he signed up with Groupon. He bragged that he had the best bagels or croissants, or whatever he sold, but he had a problem with customers who were unhappy with him because it took them 90 minutes to serve his "world's best bagel" or whatever. He literally was so strapped for cash when he started running Groupons that when he sold a meal, he would have to go to the store and buy the food to prepare it. He went under and blamed Groupon because they held back part of his payment for 30 days in reserve.
If I were in Groupon's shoes, I would reserve the merchant's paycheck until the Groupon was used, because, unlike Living Social and the local fly by night operators, Groupon will replace the coupon with another if the business fails before you are able to use it. Not only that, they notify you in advance when that happens so you don't end up driving 20 miles only to an "Out of business: sign posted on the door. If you buy a living social coupon and don't use it before expiration date, you lose your money. I lost about $30 on some living social deals I had purchased and forgotten about. But I won't be losing any more with them .I've never bought anything from them since that happened.

1:20 pm November 28, 2012

Not Buying It! wrote:

"mac gardner" is an obvious Groupon plant

{you Groupon-bots will have to do a better job than that if you want to credibly promote your business}

1:04 pm November 28, 2012

mac gardner wrote:

I love Groupon and buy them all the time, mostly for dining out. Every restaurant owner I've talked to LOVES dealing with Groupon and the wait staff loves it too, because Groupon sends new customers to the restaurant and they all make more money when the restaurant is rinning a groupon promotion. One thing that tells me that Groupons are working for the merchants is that the same ones appear to be running Groupon promotions on a repeat basis.